Teams is getting a major improvement for Office files

Microsoft Teams is an extremely powerful piece of software primarily used in work and school environments, as well as government institutions. Microsoft regularly updates the tool to add or remove features, and publicly tracks its development efforts too. Now, the Redmond tech giant has informed IT admins that it is rolling out a new capability next month which will bring major improvements to one particular area in Teams.

Sharing files in Teams chats and meetings is a pretty common scenario that pretty much every Teams user faces regularly. However, when it comes to Office files like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, the difference in UX and performance can be a bit jarring. Fortunately, Microsoft has now decided to solve this issue once and for all.

The previewer experience for Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files on Teams Android and iOS is being standardized so that they do not only align with each other, but also their desktop counterpart. As a result of this implementation, users will also experience performance improvements, which could indicate that you hopefully won't have to wait too long for the preview to open once you click a file, even if it is protected.

In addition, Microsoft has also highlighted better reliability and a "consistent viewing experience". PowerPoint and Excel previewers across Android and iOS will be standardized together, while also the Word previewer on iOS will gain this enhancement at first. Android support for the standardized Word preview is planned for later.

Naturally, this is a backend enhancement, which means that end users and IT admins don't need to take any manual action to take advantage of it. It will be enabled by default but Microsoft has requested IT admins to update their internal documentation and inform end-users, if "appropriate". The global rollout for this feature should be complete by the end of next month, if things go well.